What are Your Customers Saying?
Are your actively listening to your customers or just pretending to listen?
Everyone has received a request for feedback at some point, from some product or service that you have used. Some of those requests have gone better than others. Sometimes you feel heard and sometimes you feel like a check box that the sales person had to check on their quota form. Do not leave your customers with the same feeling.
There is a reason that you have two ears and one month. I am sure you have heard that before. It is because you should be listening twice as much as you are talking. Which is true, and even more true when you are asking for feedback from your customers. You need to get really good as ask questions and then asking more questions. You want to get down to the bottom of the customer experience and really understand what could be better, even if it is small detail. When asking for feedback remember the following:
Talk less, and then even a little bit less than that.
Do not let your ego get in the way.
Silence is ok, so let it be.
It can be very easy as a sales person, or founder to really over talk the sales process, including the request for feedback from your customers. After all you are really passionate and you are bringing some great value to your customers. Sometimes they do need a bit of convincing. Your customer knows the experience that they had with your company though, so let them speak a lot on the feedback. Ask open-ended questions and then let them answer. Make sure you clarify any points with follow-up questions, open-ended of course. Then listen some more and let them do all the talking. You want to make sure that they feel heard and listened to, that way they will continue to give you feedback that will do nothing but help you grow in the future. Some of that feedback may be hard to hear, which is why point two is so important.
You are proud of your company and your product or service we know that. Constructive feedback can be really hard to hear. After all this is your baby that you poured blood sweat and tears into. You spent long nights and early mornings getting the final touches just right. Now you are hearing all the bad things this one customer does not like about all that hard work you put into. That is not easy to hear. That is down right hard to hear. You want to justify why you went with that color scheme or did not offer that additional option, but do not. Hold your tongue. Listen and take notes. Maybe some of those items are in revision two that you are already working on, that is great. Still listen and take notes. The key here is for the customer to feel heard and listened to. We want them comfortable sharing with us, not so we can make every change they want, but so they continue to share with us their concerns long into the future. We want them to trust that we are listening and considering. We do not want to let our ego get in the way and cause them to shut down on us. So check your ego at the door and just listen and ask questions. Once you have the feedback you can reflect on it and determine which pieces are useful for the next revision and which need to be sidelined for now.
As you are asking these questions and getting this feedback there will be silence in the conversation. That is ok, let it be there. Your customer is thinking, they are determining if they can speak freely. Letting the silence be will allow them time to find their words and give you the feedback. It can be tempting in those moments of silence to clarify your question, or give examples, or just feel the space by talking. That will be counter productive though. Give your customer time to come up with the words and let the silence stand. You will be glad you did.
So remember:
Actively listen to your customers, using both ears twice and much as your one month.
Check your ego at the door. You can filter through the helpful feedback after you have it all.
Listen, Listen, Listen, and Listen some more, silence it ok.
Thank you for your time today, if you found any nuggets of useful information all I ask is that you share this with a friend, or colleague, that is truly appreciated.